Tuesday, June 13, 2006

Meanwhile, I'm still thinking

* Why is it always the small stuff that annoys the most? I'm far more forgiving of actual offense or harm than I am of minor inconvenience - I'll rant if the Mets lose, but not if my own team does, even though I have no control over the first and some control over the second.

* Bingley's odd spam problem seems to be catching. At work there's been a mini-run of the wierd name combos. At least they're using some interesting vocabulary words. My favorites so far? Tanzanias M Panoplies (no longer confined to ancient rulers), Charismatics F Coppola (Pentacostals for the Godfather?), Ludicrous V Enthrals (rap album? hypnotist? who knows), Impunity D Exclamation (and no-one can stop him, so there), and Ethnologist A Dateline (ripped from the pages of National Geographic).

* I saw a red Pontiac Grand Am, circa 1988 or so, jetting down the highway the other day. It had a small Italian flag decal on the back, just above the license plate - the single most redundant car adornment ever. For pity's sake, here in Jersey they sold that car with a free six-pack of ribbed tank-tees in the glovebox.

* Hopefully Big Ben won't contract Gary Busey Disease - but it's a long leap from "should have worn the helmet" to "therefore, the state must make him wear one." If a multi-million dollar career, endless material perks, the devotion of an entire city, and one's own health aren't enough to keep you from acting like an ignoramus, then there's no helping you. Meanwhile, that screech you hear was Charlie Batch suddenly realizing that he's got to take over a team with huge fan expectations, no goal-line back or second wide receiver, and a huge bullseye on its collective back.

* Recent college graduate pulls illegal U-turn to duck DUI checkpoint, gets busted anyway. This is every weekend in every county of the union, mind you, but not every college graduate could go top-ten in a professional sports draft. Break out the kid gloves, and while you're at it, the shovels for the amount of Bravo Sierra likely to pile up - good kid, isolated incident, yada yada frickin' yada.

* Talked with Mom on Sunday and she said that even in southern Florida, this was causing a lot of wind gusts and quick rain storms. My thoughts go out to those who are more northern and getting worse right now.